Abstract
This chapter completes the account of the American rocket programme under the Truman presidency by examining the few occasions on which the undervalued astronautical ‘buck’ stopped somewhere near that elusive entity, ‘the administration’. However, the borderline between generating advice and reaching decisions is often hard to discern in the American political process, especially when the issue is both highly technical and located at the margins of official awareness. Such was the case between 1945 and 1952, both with ballistic missiles and with the artificial Earth satellites which a few informed people began, in the second half of the 1940s, to believe that such rockets would eventually make possible. Because the line separating advice from policy is so hard to draw, it has probably been crossed in one direction in Chapters 3 and 4, and may be crossed again here in the other.
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Notes and References
Where specific references have not been given, the author acknowledges the following secondary sources for this chapter: E. Beard, Developing the ICBM (1976 — ch. 3, n. 44)
J. L. Chapman, Atlas (1960 — ch. 3, n. 49)
E. M. Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics: an American Chronology of Science and Technology in the Exploration of Space 1915–1960 ( Washington: NASA, 1961 )
S. L. Rearden, The Formative Years (1984 — ch. 2, n. 22).
US Department of Defense, First Report of the Secretary of Defense, 29 December 1948, p. 9.
US Department of Defense, H. H. Arnold, Second Report of the Commanding General of the U. S. Army Air Forces to the Secretary of War (London: HMSO, 1945), p. 94. James Doolittle had similar ideas to Arnold’s, and the necessary status as a legendary aviator to promote them, but he also left the service in 1946.
D. Mackenzie and G. Spinardi, ‘The Shaping of Nuclear Weapon System Technology: US Fleet Ballistic Missile Guidance and Navigation — 1: From Polaris to Poseidon’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 18, no. 3, 1988.
Articles by Arthur Krock, New York Times 1 and 5 November 1957.
F. I. Ordway and M. R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (1979 — ch. 3, n. 38 ), pp. 371–2.
US Congress, Senate, Armed Services, Hearings: Inquiry into Satellite and Missile Programs (1958 — ch. 1, n. 11 ), pp. 584–5.
US Congress, House, Astronautics, Hearings: Astronautics and Space Exploration (85th Congress, 2nd Session, 1958), pp. 1504 ff.
RAND Corporation, Social Sciences Division, Proc. Conference on Psychological Effects of Unconventional Weapons (1949 — ch. 4, n. 32), p. 102.
RAND Corporation, Social Sciences Division, Summary Report on Conference on Psychological Effects of Unconventional Weapons (26–8 January 1949) Ref. D-405, 21 February 1949, p. 14.
RAND Corporation, P. Kecskemeti, The Satellite Rocket Vehicle (1950 — ch. 4, n. 32).
The surviving documents do not make it clear, but on reading between the lines it seems likely that the idea of this consultancy originated from Grosse himself. The wording of a subsequent letter from Grosse to the NASA historian Eugene Emme (NHO — Grosse Biog. File, 12 January 1973) strongly suggests that Grosse never actually met the President. Space historians have stated that Grosse was ‘a key figure in the Manhattan Project in its early days’: C. Mc. Green and M. Lomask, Vanguard: a History (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1971), p. 16. But Grosse never worked in any part of the Manhattan District. The story that he had done so arose from a letter written by von Braun to Robert Truax in 1952 which has not been checked as it should have been:
S. Thomas, Men of Space vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1961 ), pp. 192–3.
H. S. Truman, Year of Decisions ( London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1955 )
H. S. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope ( London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1956 ).
H. S. Truman, Mr Citizen ( London: Hutchinson, 1961 ).
For example: Chapman, Atlas (n. 1); Emme, Astronautics (n. 1); E. G. Schwiebert, A History of the U. S. Air Force Ballistic Missiles (1965 -ch. 5, n. 27)
W. von Braun and F. I. Ordway, History of Rocketry & Space Travel (1967 — ch. 1, n. 45).
Emme, Astronautics (n. 1), p. 66; R. L. Perry, ‘The Atlas, Thor, Titan and Minuteman’ (1964 — ch. 5, n. 33), pp. 142–3; C. C. Alexander, ‘Part One — Research’ in L. S. Swenson, J. M. Grimwood and C. C. Alexander, This New Ocean: a History of Project Mercury (Washington: NASA, 1966) p. 22; von Braun and Ordway, History (n. 54 ), p. 122.
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© 1991 Rip Bulkeley
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Bulkeley, R. (1991). The Truman Space Policy. In: The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11981-3_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11981-3_6
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